The Rise of Industrialization
Plessy v. Ferguson
Led by activists like Anne Dallas Dudley, Tennessee earned this famous nickname in 1920 after becoming the final state needed to ratify the 19th Amendment.
"Perfect 36"
Driven by publishers like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, this style of sensationalized, exaggerated news reporting stirred up American public anger against Spain before the Spanish-American War.
Yellow journalism
This famous Tennessee war hero single-handedly captured 132 German soldiers during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, earning the Medal of Honor.
Alvin York
By perfecting the assembly line in his Detroit factories, this industrialist made the Model T affordable for average families and transformed American manufacturing.
Henry Ford
By adopting the Bessemer process and using vertical integration, this Scottish immigrant built a massive Pittsburgh-based empire that dominated the American steel industry.
Andrew Carnegie
Formed by farmers struggling against high shipping rates and monopolies, this 19th-century organization rallied rural communities and successfully pushed states to pass laws regulating railroad prices.
The Granger Movement
Built under President Theodore Roosevelt, this engineering marvel connected the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, drastically cutting travel time for American commercial and naval ships. Hint: This is one of the things we imperialized.
Panama Canal
Characterized by deep dugouts, barbed wire, and no man's land, this defensive style of fighting defined the Western Front and led to a bloody stalemate.
Trench warfare
Centered in a famous New York City neighborhood, this 1920s African American cultural movement celebrated Black literature, music, and art through figures like Langston Hughes and Louis Armstrong.
Harlem Renaissance
Passed in 1887, this federal law aimed to forcibly assimilate Native Americans into white American culture by breaking up tribal lands and granting individual plots to heads of households.
The Dawes Act
Unlike W.E.B. Du Bois, who demanded immediate political equality, this leader argued in his "Atlanta Compromise" speech that African Americans should focus first on industrial education and economic self-reliance.
Booker T. Washington
An addition to the Monroe Doctrine, this foreign policy declared that the United States had the right to act as an "international police power" in Latin America to prevent European intervention.
Roosevelt Corollary
Encrypted and sent by Germany, this secret diplomatic note promised Mexico the return of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona if it allied against the U.S., pushing America into WWI.
Zimmerman Telegram
Held in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925, this nation-ally publicized "Monkey Trial" pitted lawyers Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan against each other over the teaching of evolution in public schools.
The Scopes Trial
The 1881 assassination of President James A. Garfield by a disappointed office-seeker directly led to the passage of this 1883 law, which ended the "spoils system" and created merit-based tests for government jobs.
The Pendleton Act
Working alongside John Muir and Gifford Pinchot, Theodore Roosevelt used his executive authority to protect over 230 million acres of public land by establishing national parks, monuments, and forests.
Conservation
Unlike Roosevelt’s "Big Stick" policy, President William Howard Taft relied on this foreign policy strategy, which aimed to extend American influence in Latin America through financial investments and business loans rather than military force.
Dollar Diplomacy
In this landmark 1919 ruling, the Supreme Court upheld speech restrictions during wartime, declaring that speech presenting a "clear and present danger" is not protected by the First Amendment.
Schenck v. United States
Pushed by Jim Crow laws in the South and pulled by industrial job opportunities in northern cities, millions of African Americans participated in this massive demographic movement starting in the early 1900s.
The Great Migration
Driven by fears of lost jobs and cultural change, this anti-immigrant movement favored native-born Americans and pushed to restrict "new" immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe.
Nativism
Progressives expanded direct democracy at the state level through these three political mechanisms: allowing voters to propose new laws, vote directly on legislation, and remove corrupt officials before their terms end.
In his 1890 book The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, this naval officer argued that national greatness required a strong navy and overseas coaling stations, providing the strategic justification for American expansion.
Alfred Mahan
Led by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, the U.S. Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles and refused to join this international peacekeeping body, fearing it would drag America into future foreign wars.
League of Nations
Sparked by fear of communism following the Russian Revolution, this post-WWI period of anti-leftist hysteria led to federal government arrests and deportations of foreign-born radicals known as the Palmer Raids.
First Red Scare